The Meaning of Rand Paul

The day after Rand Paul’s landslide Republican primary victory for US Senate in Kentucky the mainstream Left tried to paint him as a segregationist and the mainstream Right either ignored or attacked him, and for good reason. Like his father Ron, Rand Paul represents revolution—and the establishment is petrified.

Let’s begin with the Left. Afraid that they can’t beat a conservative Republican of Paul’s pedigree in this Tea Party-influenced, anti-Obama political climate of 2010, liberals are trying to run against him in 1964. Cherry picking irrelevant references Paul has made about private property rights and how they could possibly relate to the Civil Rights Act or even the Americans with Disabilities Act, Democrats are trying to portray Rand the libertarian as a closeted Klansmen who secretly hates “coloreds” and “cripples.”

It’s no surprise that in any discussion about government intrusiveness and private business, race-obsessed liberals immediately equate free will and free markets with Jim Crow. When MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow hysterically brought up the specter of segregated lunch counters during an interview with Paul, author Thomas Woods noted the absurdity of even having such a conversation today, writing for The American Conservative: “any non-hysteric knows a segregated restaurant would be boycotted and picketed out of existence within ten seconds, but we’re supposed to fret about fictional outcomes from the repeal of a law that will never be repealed.” Fictional indeed, and portraying Paul as somehow anti-black is no different than conservatives who portray antiwar protesters as anti-American—where legitimate concerns by citizens about the actions of their government are misconstrued to imply horrible and untrue things about the concerned. Liberals howl when rightwing talk hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck call President Obama “racist,” and now the Left shamelessly borrows from their playbook.

But it’s not just the Left who are upset over the rapid ascent of America’s next top conservative idol. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum finds Paul to be as “extreme” as liberals do, writing on the day after the election, “Rand Paul’s victory in the Kentucky Republican primary is obviously a depressing event for those who support strong national defense and rational conservative politics.” Frum’s preferred candidate in the Kentucky primary, Trey Grayson, was not only a former Bill Clinton Democrat but a George W. Bush Republican, deviating little from the party establishment and heartily receiving their endorsement—as former Vice President Dick Cheney and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell lined up behind Grayson in a desperate attempt to prevent Paul from winning. With Paul trouncing Grayson 59% to 34%, the old Republican guard lost in a Randslide.

Fashioning himself and his Bush league friends as supporters of “strong national defense” and “rational conservative politics,” it doesn’t take much investigation to see that what Frum thinks is rationally conservative: A return to the Republican brand today’s grassroots conservatives reject most—big spending, debt-doubling neoconservatism. Disaffected Republicans turned Tea Partiers are not as enamored with America’s ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan as they once were, and aren’t so in love with war that they will ignore big government, a narrative Bush and the neocons successfully used for eight years to keep rank-and-file Republicans in line. TheHill.com’s John Feehery knows what’s got Frum’s goat, “Rand Paul’s election may very well mean the beginning of the end of the neo-conservative movement in the Republican Party.” Writes conservative columnist George Will, “It may seem strange for a Republican to have opposed, as Paul did, the invasion of Iraq. But in the eighth year of that war, many Kentuckians may think he was strangely prescient.” Frum’s fear is that Kentuckians, and Americans-at-large, might be encouraged to actually think about the wisdom of American foreign policy.

And this fear extends to conservative talk radio, where on the day after Paul’s victory, hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity said little to nothing about it. Compare their silence to the election of Scott Brown, the Massachusetts senator who received wall-to-wall coverage in the conservative media. Why was there so much excitement for this moderate to liberal Republican from Massachusetts? That’s easy. Brown was a conventional Republican who in going after Ted Kennedy’s old seat, excited the conservative base without upsetting the GOP establishment. Paul is the opposite and Freehery notes the difference: “Rand Paul will be more than the skunk at the garden party in the United States Senate. He will be subversive when it comes to critical Republican orthodoxies.” Like his father, Rand is the Republican establishment’s worst nightmare, hence the downplaying of his newfound celebrity by the GOP brass and their talk radio spokesman.

It’s somewhat appropriate that liberals would go all the way back to 1964 in attacking Rand, because his rise truly is the resurgence of Barry Goldwater-style, limited government philosophy. Goldwater’s politics were once considered the bedrock of American conservatism and yet today create so much controversy, not only for the Left and its race obsession, but for the mainstream Right which finds Rand’s greatest vice to be his “extremist” brand of liberty, of which they can find no virtue. This ridiculous, two-party status quo restricts substantive debate, impedes real reform and begs for revolution. And whether the establishment likes it or not—Rand Paul just might give it to them.

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31 Responses to The Meaning of Rand Paul

“When MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow hysterically brought up the specter of segregated lunch counters during an interview with Paul…” Huh, when was Ms. Maddow “hysterical”? Obviously you weren’t watching the same interview. Either that or you’re purposefly using incorrect language to force the opinion that Rand Paul is for civil rights for everyone in both the public and private sectors.

But it’s obvious that you’re using incorrect language to make a point, such as “Liberals Howl”, “the Left shamelessly borrows from their playbook”,

Are you kidding. Paul is a rich guy with little idea what is going on regarding Americans in 2010. He has made his living off of huge government health care payments to him, as a Doctor, but squawks as soon as government spends money on anything else. He is busy adding up his tax writeoffs, but whines about tax too high, blah blah blah. He is just a typical, old school country club Republican, and he will lose handily in November.

There is one thing abundantly clear, BIG L Libertarians will, after being CONVENIENTLY ignored for decades, finally have a voice and a seat at the table in BOTH houses of Congress…although with a small l spelling. This scares the absolute crap out of both progressive socialists AND neo-conservatives. Here’s a message to both: FREEDOM, learn to live with it!

Rand Paul is “extreme”? *Extreme* is wanting government to intercede in all the affairs of individual life.
*Extreme* is believing that Palestinians are always aggressors and Israelis are always victims.
*Extreme* is seeing nothing barbaric about partial-birth abortion.
*Extreme* is being for same-sex marriage while pretending that the same logic of “equality” somehow forbids group marriage for bisexuals.
*Extreme* is wanting to mold other countries in the image of the USA.
*Extreme* is calling your fellow citizens “homophobes” for saying that a–l sex is revolting.
*Extreme* is brooking no dissent from the truth written in the clouds, which is liberalism–believe it or be damned.

Thomas Woods is wrong. In the segregated south, stores were willing to sacrifice not having African Americans patronize them. King used boycotts to make his points but it only worked where an African American boycott would work. The market was failing African Americans. Because people can be irrational the market model did not work. The government had to step in to preserve the Civil Rights of deserving Americans. The “market” was clearly not sorting it out.

He makes me a little nervous but perhaps he “moderates”
his positions to make headway to the beltway.
I know Ron Paul is the real deal and yes he scares the hell out of the American ruling class on the Left and Right.
Ron is about restoring the Constitutiona and a free cvil and economic society, the big boss pigs at the trough are frightened.

I’m on your side Mr. Hunter, but this was a blunder on Rand’s part, whether we like it or not politics is all about perception. Stupid traps like the one the left set up for Paul could easily be avoided by asking: “And what relevance does the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have today?” “Do I back Civil Rights? Yes. Would I have supported the 64 Act? Yes. I would’ve had some problem with the Private Property portion of the bill, but I would’ve still voted for it because it resecured the individual rights of African Americans.”

Non-controversial answers to a non-issue, but his stumbling and over-explaining hurt him in a state where Democrats still outnumber Republicans. Remember his opponent is a popular Democrat that has won statewide before this non-controversy, benefits Conway and the Dems. Don’t underestimate this screw up, because it is a screw up.

The Jim Crow laws of the south made it illegal for business to service more than one race. So even if a business did want to make more money by serving both black and white customers they would be in violation of the law. It was the same with hiring workers. You had to have extra areas to segregate black and white workers so that they did not work side by side. These added costs even made major national firms choose not to do business in the south so the entire region was even more poor due to lack of capital investment. This was a statute based, apartheid system NOT the free market.

David, I’m calling you and your simpleton logic out. The fact is store keepers segregation policies were subsidized by police power. When an “uppity negro” went into a segregated establishment and refused to leave, they were arrested and forcibly removed for criminal trespass. Stores didn’t need to hire security to remove trespassers, the cops did it for them. The stores didn’t have to worry about tort liability because the cops had qualified immunity. Towns didnt have to worry about violating civil rights because they were merely enforcing a race neutral law. Take away the stores police subsidy and this whole subject becomes very expensive and risky.

The Left has been a one-trick pony: promise more money for your cause. That is how the Democratic party has worked for decades in appealing to every interest group you can name. But in an era with trillion dollar deficits the one trick won’t work anymore. Nobody wants to hear promises for more spending this time around. So they are using a new trick: call everything racist. Protesting the deficit? Racist! Protesting taxes? Racist! For small government? Racist! Against universal health care? Racist! For enforcing the nation’s borders? Racist!

Wow, I had never really thought about it in terms of the 1960s but Obama really is the ultimate incarnation of that decade: 1) beatniks and hippies, communes aka liberal individualism
2) the porn, the free sex, the birth control, the abortion, euthanasia aka prosex but anti-life
3) big government and big government unions, high taxes, open borders, high immigration expansive social programs, enormously expensive failed public schools
4) and of course black liberation ideology, feminism, gay rights, affirmative action in the name of statistical victimization making everyone a victim except whites, men and christians.
THIS ENTIRE LIBERAL EXPERIMENT COMES FROM THE 1960s.

African Americans will never be free through affirmative action and big government. African Americans have only seen affirmative action to put women and hispanics and asians ahead of them.

The real question is whether the future of this nation continues its socialist individualist path conforming to the liberals or if RandPaul, RonPaul and the others succeed in a backlash to smaller federal government, fewer immigrants, restrictive borders, states rights, energy independence, balanced trade, the end to subsidizing the export of jobs, balanced budgets, assimilation and unification of our culture and communities. In other words…a Teddy Roosevelt monopoly buster, an Eisenhower isolationist, etc.

We can only hope that Obama is the flame out, the last gasp, of the 1960s and that as all ultimate expressions reveal their flaws and weaknesses feeding the end of their reign.

The Ron/Rand Paul Tea Parties mark the end of the Big Government, pro-Israel (lets go to war for Israel, lets bail out wall street) Bush party. The Bush republicans repulsed me and I could not embrace a kernel of their truth. I became independent and found the Pauline principles.

I want to see what the collapse of the 1960 liberal movement will be replaced. I personally cant wait until its (politically correct, criminalization of free speech, black liberation ideology, feminism, affirmative action, hate america victimization, open borders, etc) dead! Until that day, they repulse me even though I want to embrace a kernel of their truth.

On the other hand, politicians can’t just shoot from the hip. Rand Paul needs an aide who will muzzle him at times. What’s dangerous for a politician seeking office is the appearance of being a loose cannon.

Publius Cato: But aren’t police supposed to prevent lawbreaking? Is there (properly) a constitutional right to discriminate, on free speech and freedom of association grounds? Don’t assume there can’t be a freedom of private-entity discrimination in a well-ordered constitutional system. Don’t be a liberal simpleton.

Look. Rand shot himself in the foot. Liberals just watch him do it.
In fact, after the guy shot himself in the foot about the civil rights act he goes on to shoot himself in the other foot by trying to give BP a pass by saying “accidents happen”

Things got so bad that his handlers pulled him out of the 3rd round on Meet the Press so he could “rest because he was exhausted” after a gruelling 2 days on the campaign trail

The best way to make sure that Rand Paul’s extremist views don’t become mainstream is to support the guy who is running to defeat him
I just donated 10 buck onllne athttp://jackconway.org/

“Cherry picking irrelevant references Paul has made about private property rights and how they could possibly relate to the Civil Rights Act or even the Americans with Disabilities Act, Democrats are trying to portray Rand the libertarian as a closeted Klansmen who secretly hates “coloreds” and “cripples.”

Rand Paul, if he was to express his reservations over any aspect of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, ought to have set his sights on affirmative action. In order for the act to pass, LBJ had to ally himself with Republican Everett Dirksen in exchange for an amendment that proscribed racial quotas and, hence, affirmative action. The illegality of quotas was flouted by legal activists in the EEOC and their disobedience was in time enshrined in the Griggs decision, heralding the era of positive discrimination and protected minorities. Paul should have addressed the original intent of the law and its subsequent subversion by legal/ judicial activist chicanery. AA is a topic of much relevance as it is the pervasive quota mentality–exemplified by the CRA and EEOC–that has wrought so much economic chaos.

You people totally miss the point.
The 1964 Civil Wrongs Law is a total violation of individual property rights and should be repealed. The public accomodations and EEOC sections are wrong as is the 1968 Fair Housing Act and should be repealed. Government should outlaw discrimination only in government facilities which we are all forced to support. Of course a business owner has the right to call the cops to evict trepassers, if he only used his own private police he’d probably be in more trouble with the government. These laws were described by Ayn Rand, after whom Rand Paul was named, as the worse violation off individual property rights in the sorry American record to date
(1963.) Woods comments were particularly asinine real politik
unprincipled pragmatist trash. It doesn’t matter if some people picket or the current chances of repealing the law.
Rand Paul blew it by his groveling performance in endorsing
that awful law. I hope he now loses, he’s NOT a chip off his
Dad’s block because Ron opposes the law.
You all are typical conservatives whose function is to ratify any awful statist law once it gets established.
Politics is a waste of time, we need a revolution a la Atlas Shrugged to get back our rights.

It took us 230+ years to get here. It’s going to take some time to get us to the limited government, free society you desire. First, we need to reawaken the awareness of some basic distinctions (e.g private vs. public property, freedom of association, how one can be against racism, yet also being against private regulations against it.) We’re just now getting people to use terms like ‘enumerated powers’ and Congress’s role in war declarations in public discourse for goodness sake!

I understand your frustration, but if we really want these changes to occur, we need you to be in it for the long haul. Or you can just hole yourself up in Galt’s Gulch. Your choice.

I’m afraid all of you are wrong. The ’64 act didn’t go far enough. We need a Civil Rights Act of 2011 if we’re ever going to become one people. Here are some suggested provisions, in case any politicians are reading this:

All whites are required to watch one hour of a Tyler Perry production each week.
All blacks are required to watch one hour of CMT each week.

cfountain72, you appear to be quite reasonable but Rand Paul
blew it when he chickened out in stating his true beliefs in front of that obnoxious lesbian AND compounded his error by issuing a fulsome endorsement of the horrible 64 law.
You are never going to educate the public by adopting the awful enemy premises and yet his performance was so typical of most conservatives and not a few cowardly libertarians and objectivists. In a political context all you need to state is that you are against the use of force for either forced segregation or forced integration. If you start trying to prove your not a “racist” you have lost already. Here in Oakland the overwhelming racism comes from blacks and I think that’s true everywhere.

Rand Paul is just one guy. So is his dad. No principled movement can define itself by any one individual, because no individual is a perfect representation of true principles.

I believe in a lot of true principles that I often fall short of in word or deed. Does that make me a hypocrite? Possibly, but it doesn’t diminish the principle.

Rand Paul failed to act in accordance with the principle of recognizing the viewpoint of someone with whom he was communicating and trying to explain something from within than viewpoint. When we talk to progressives we must recognize that they have been taught to mistrust liberty except in personal artistic and sexual expression. Dr Paul, Jr forgot who he was talking to.

Rachel Maddow and her (now larger) audience aren’t evil, but they already had very low trust of a politician who champions liberty outside of the “safe” realm of personal expression. He spoke a truth about the constitutional right of personal choice, but he expressed it in a manner that Ms Maddow views as a threat to her beliefs in justice. She’s a person, not just a talking head. I think he owes her an apology and a follow up interview, not to deflect the political impact, but to help her see the principle of voluntary interaction among American citizens within her paradigm. That kind of effort is much more difficult and requires real empathy, but it’s more effective.

Rachel IS evil precisely because she is a hardcore statist-collectivist. No one can speak for her whole audience and
we are under NO obligation to softpedal our views so as not
to offend poor little left-libs like Maddow. Rand Paul should shoot himself before he apologizes anymore, he’s already grovelled enough. People like Rachel spend their whole lives evading objective reality. The belief that if only we said things in a certain way………..is delusional.
Goldwater bent over backwards explaining his vote on the 1964 Act and I lived in DC at the time, it didn’t buy him squat
among white libs or Negroes as they were then called.
Rachel’s larger audience is a flash in the pan, MSNBC and
CNN are sinking, let them die.

You have made one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever seen. What you’ve described Rand Paul as is the opposite of what he really is. He is the one candidate that is NOT a country club Republican. He stands for his principles, and you can’t say that about anyone else in Congress but his father, Ron Paul. They are both for liberty, which benefits EVERYONE but the weak and people with their hand out. Besides, we don’t have any money anyway, so the whole liberal ideology should be put on hold for now. Any liberal who thinks we should be blowing money on big government at this point is like a child who thinks money grows on trees. Grow up already.

The problem with “Rand Paul and the 1964 Civil Rights Act” blowup is not one of principle but of courage. Libertarians hold that the personal property of each of us is ours to control and if an irrational racist wants to refuse to deal with a member of a race he hates then it is his right — and it is my right and the right of others to boycott his business. It is ironic that for progressives and liberals the defense of the right of nazis to parade in a jewish community or for the KKK to have a rally is protected as a “noble democratic ideal” — “I may disagree with what you say but I would defend with my life your right to say it” … however for a libertarian to protect the right of the same fool to control his own priovate property, well, that must be libertarian racism. “Public Accomidations ” Like “Social Security” have become “third rail dogma” and it takes more courage than Rand Paul apparently has to say so.
The heart of “Jim Crow” was the legal segregation of government services (schools, transportation, parks, water fountains, etc.) What is paid for with stolen tax dollars can not be denied to the victims of the tax system. The legitimate
Civil Rights laws end public / government / tax supported segregation.

It’s just downright stubborness and a religious belief in the eternity of racism that prevents people from distinguishing between the principle involved here and support for racism. Were there some (no, sorry, not the majority) white private business owners, ie, restaurants, hotels, gas station bathrooms, etc, in 1964 who simply didn’t want to serve black Americans? No one, Rand Paul or anyone else, has any doubt that there were. There were also others who genuinely didn’t approve of such un-Christian discrimination, but, because of timidity, cowardice, whatever virtue-less apathy you want to ascribe to it, didn’t see any reason to upset the applecart, irregardless of how stringently the STATE LAWS of Jim Crow were being enforced in their area. Liberals (and neocons) seem to believe the problem of a segregated culture in general between blacks and whites in the South was a result of the inherent evil of the whites, and it had always been thus. No, actually. The problem was 90-100 years of a segregated culture between blacks and whites that had arisen slowly over time after a ferocious war that left 600,000 + dead, millions maimed, physically and mentally, and bitterness everywhere, because the choice was made to reject the Constitution and suppress secession. Rather than letting it happen, and then doing everything possible to accelerate and destroy the already weakening (no matter what the delusional Jaffaite “scholars” say) evil institution of slavery, and letting a situation arise where there would have been two separate nations, one slave and one free living next to each other with all that that implies with regard to the leverage available to the abolitionist cause, a decision was made to engage in a scorched earth campaign in the U.S. Not because of principled abolition and freedom for all men, but to preserve the power of the federal State. Then, after the War, and after a very cynical Reconstruction campaign, we had the horrible pols agreement of the 1876 election ten years later. Any semblance of enforcing freedom and liberty for black Americans after that in the south was pretty much abandoned, and white southerners who had just lost their fathers, sons, brothers, etc. in one of the most vicious wars of all time, indeed, the first modern warfare war, were unfortunately embittered enough to let the system continue from there, with blacks “free” on paper, if not truly in reality the way whites were, and blacks and whites having as little to do with one another for another 85-90 years, until, thanks to television and narcissistic self-righteous white liberal reporters finally started noticing how crazy and crazily unfair to blacks the situation was, the federal government decided to use force. The idea, that by the early 1960s, white southerners were somehow a different breed from whites elsewhere and actually loved the racism of the south is an all too predictable fairy tale that self-righteous progressive whites told themselves and tell themselves still today, because the alternative truth is too dispiriting for them, they are far too invested in their own self-righteousness to ever let go of the idea that white racism will endure forever.

All this despite the obvious truth today: that were the private discrimination ban overturned today any white owned establishment that exercised it would immediately be bombarded with national press and boycotts, not to mention the refusal of the overwhelming majority of whites to associate with such a place. Indeed, would a black-owned soul food restaurant in Harlem that discriminated against whites get the same attention? Korean owned delis in NYC who are, after all, statistically robbed by blacks and hispanics more than other ethnic groups? How about Latino and black establishments in east L.A.? The overwhelming gang activity that has arisen there in the last 20-25 years is between those two groups, fueled by our lawless illegal immigration. Which ethnic-owned business group that discriminated today if civil rights acts hadn’t been passed would get the most attention from the press, d’ya think? Well, gee, let’s see, seeing as how we have non-white racialist groups IN CONGRESS FOR GOD’S SAKE, like the Congressional black caucus and congressional hispanic caucus, but no Congressional white caucus, (can you imagine?), I think it’s fair to say that the white owned private businesses that discriminated would be the ones getting all the attention if the law were repealed. Considering also the fact that, as can be statistically proven, whites are the most hostile to race-based discrimination or as we less honestly call it, “affirmative action”, and are the most supportive of the idea of a colorblind principle, I’d say it’s pretty obvious they are the least discriminatory group nowadays.

So calling Maddow an hysteric is entirely appropriate. So is the obvious fact that, had a more principled and yes, if necessary, slower and more evolutionary approach been taken, both in the 19th century in getting rid of slavery, and 45-50 years ago in ending a segregated culture, we’d have a far happier, less race-obsessed, and more human and more honest E Pluribus Unum American culture today. But we didn’t, so we don’t. And now we live with the carnival spectacle of never being able to discuss anything that could possibly have something to do with race even the teensiest bit honestly.

It seems that most of you guys can’t even put forth your substantive arguments without getting sidetracked into name-calling and childishness. Call me a liberal negro lesbian sadomasochistic kkk shill if you want, but politicians don’t offer real solutions, they divide us and make enemies out of each other, so that we can fight like toddlers over relatively non-issues while they continue to fleece us and laugh at us behind our backs as we hold up yet another politician “hero” who is going to “win” against our “enemy”. Every one of you guys is your own worst enemy, including me. I’m on Rodney King’s side here, but if we can’t all just get along, could you at least beat me a bit more gently?

I agree with Eisenhower. I think Rand could have given a much more succinct, clearer answer, one that didn’t leave him so open to demagoguery. A rookie mistake. I like Rand, but he needs to sharpen his debate skills.

Mike G, Eisenhower is dead wrong in his inane, unprincipled comments on the 1964 Civil Wrongs Act. The honest answer is, NO, I would not have supported a bill that violates the individual property rights of everyone to serve whom they please, employ whom they please, sell their house to whom they please.
This is no different in principle than the Jim Crow laws mandating coercion the other way. If a law violates individual rights, it can’t protect anyone’s rights.
Tano, can you translate your ramblings into english ?
A.C., thanks for the historical context, one of the best contributions posted.
Liberty8155, you are confusing Rand, who has no principles with Ron, who does. See Raimondo’s column in today’s (5/25)
antiwar.com.

Lunch counters are one thing but most hospitals are run for profit, so are ambulance companies, pharmacies, etc. Surely Dr. Paul doesn’t think they have they should have the right to refuse to serve people. These are all for profit businesses. As usual politicians work to reduce everything to simple sound bites and we are supposed to take sides. True conservatives
are usually loathe to support badly thought out change to existing law and easy solutions.